INTEGRATED Bar of the Philippines (IBP) National President Burt Estrada talked to members of the press during the PCAFI-HAN press conference together with former Department of Agriculture (DA) undersecretary Roberto Ansaldo representing Philippine Chamber for Agriculture and Food Inc. (PCAFI) as its regional director for Mindanao.
Estrada shared that the IBP supports PCAFI's vision and advocacy focusing on the Indigenous people (IP) communities to achieve water security, climate change and credit access, among others. Like many other countries, the Philippines is facing skyrocketing food inflation due to supply issues and the high cost of fuel.
Ansaldo was the project director of the USAid program Inclusive Growth through Inclusive Business (IGIB) that helped the Bukidnon Tagoloanon tribe, as beneficiary of the project, and created Bukidnon Tagoloanon Mulahay Ha Kabukalagan Agriculture Cooperative (Buktamaco) as their economic arm. Five years after, Estrada is replicating the program in the IBP for more lawyers to help more IP communities be included in national growth and development.
IGIB is the flagship project under the National Legal Aid program with the objectives of providing IP communities with an organization with a recognized juridical personality to deal with the government, the private sector, and financial institutions that is in accordance with their customary laws and traditions and maintaining and improving IBP's socio-cultural relevance through the proper optimization of the Rule of Law.
The main beneficiaries of this project for this initial phase are IPs in three project sites, covering four cooperatives in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao: Bataan for Luzon, Negros Occidental for Visayas and South Cotabato-General Santos City for Mindanao.
The project has already made significant gains, with the project site in Dinalupihan, Bataan, already receiving its Articles of Cooperation from the Cooperatives Development Authority after only a few months of implementation and the project site in Don Salvador Benedicto, Negros Occidental having its application approved.